Forde Lives

Good morning in Christ’s name!

I am a former student of Gerhard Forde. I ascribe to many—even most—of his theological views. I am passionate about the legacy of his ministry and work. I feel a responsibility to carry forward lessons he taught me, though my updates to this blog have been fitful. I know that this isn’t a very thoroughly maintained and sustained homage to my late friend, teacher and inspiration. So mine is not a very loud or consistent voice. That’s one struggle.

Related to that struggle is that I am participating in a twelve step recovery program. My entry into addiction recovery began in late winter of 2009—coincidentally a little bit after the most recent entry in this blog! (so you can guess part of reasons for the slowdown) One of the things I have learned in that process is that many of us in recovery have “resigned from the debating society.” It’s a little risky to participate in polemical writing of the kind I knew would happen on this blog, because I’m focused on putting my recovery—and the humility required to stay in it—in front of the many reactions I used to have.

The next struggle is that I greatly differ with my friend and mentor on several key subjects. The most high-profile divergences (and those of immediate concern) are on the subjects of church organization/governance and human sexuality, my views of which have branched and sprouted and changed considerably over the last two decades.

I own this domain name, and I made some cool Forde Lives bumper stickers (still available). Plus, I have no doubt that I want to keep the flame of Forde’s legacy alive. I still yearn to interpret not just the church and the corpus of Christian theology, but society and culture, perhaps life itself through the lenses we received from him!

But I also have little doubt that many of the people who are sympathetic to this desire would…to use the kind of salty language my other friend and mentor Jim Nestingen might employ…flip their shit, knowing that I’m a “queer-lovin’ commie.” So, I’m sensitive to this matter: you should know that on the issues of human sexuality most notably addressed in 2009, my stance is more in line with that of the mainline ELCA, than with many of the publicly visible people who likewise carry the Forde legacy. In fact, my personal stances are probably—I’ll be charitable— much less timid and soothing than those voted on in Minneapolis!

Can we continue this? Can you keep (or start) reading? We will see. God’s will shall sort these things out in time. I will stand by my love of Gerhard and his work. I’m committed to a path of service. What will become of this blog? Stick around, decide once things get going. But you should know right now that into which you are getting!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 10:38 am and is filed under ELCA, Policy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.